A giant tea cup woke me up the other morning, demanding equal time in the Tea versus Coffee debate.
“You’re not making a great start,” I said. “I’m going to need a cup of coffee just to deal with you!”
He followed me to the kitchen. “You do whatever makes you happy,” said Tea. “Just listen to me, that’s all I ask.”
“Okay, Mr. Tea; why don’t you put that kettle on, over there, and I’ll make coffee over here, and we’ll do one last comparison.”
“Perfect,” he responded. While we waited for his water to boil, he kept talking. “You know, that health columnist fella at the Times says I’m as good for you as coffee, right?”
“Well, almost as good.”
“And green tea, especially.”
“About that….”
“I knew it! I knew there was something!”
“Just that I’ve tried it, and once was enough. Many years ago — before I ever met my husband — I traveled with a boyfriend to Japan. We took a tourist bus around Tokyo, and one of the stops was a tea garden. The tour guide’s English was shaky, and our Japanese was nonexistent, but because we were holding hands, she decided we were newlyweds.
“After everyone from the bus had filed into the tea pavilion, an older Japanese woman demonstrated the ancient tea-making ceremony. Our guide explained it formed a ritual of almost religious significance. The water was heated a certain way; whisked with the tea a certain way; poured in a very particular way into special little cups; and then savored. For the grand finale, they presented the specially-brewed cup to me — new bride that they thought I was — and then brought out trays of pre-poured tea for everyone else.
“All eyes were upon me as I took a sip — and gagged. It tasted exactly as if someone had gathered up the grass clippings from behind my dad’s lawnmower and made me eat them. I began to panic, because I desperately needed to spit it out — but I knew I mustn’t dishonor my hostess. So I quickly took a bite of the rice cookie that someone had put in my hand.
“That was, if anything, worse! I could feel my stomach heaving. I had to get away. So I bowed and backed out the door, until I could get around the corner and out of sight.”
“Okay,” said Mr. Tea. “So forget green tea. There’s plenty more kinds than that. Like this Earl Grey over here.”
“Watch out,” I said. “The kettle’s whistling, and the steam always burns my arm when I pour.”
“Why don’t you get another kettle?” asked Mr. Tea.
“That’s my third one,” I replied. “They all do that.”
“Anyway,” he rattled on, “What about that tea on your for-real honeymoon? Cream tea in Devonshire, England? That was delicious, admit it.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “That was a great day,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t the tea; it’s what came with it. Fresh-baked scones, and strawberry jam with clotted cream. Sounds revolting, but it tastes like heaven — like whipped cream, only better and thicker— almost like ice cream.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Tea, adding milk and sugar to the tea he’d just brewed. “You said that those cream teas could even make up for the English weather.”
“Yes, but if I ate like that every time it rained, there, I’d be rounder than you!”
But perhaps my feelings for tea were already prejudiced by a field trip experience in elementary school. We went to the headquarters of the McCormick Spice Company, in Baltimore, Maryland.
First, we walked through the warehouse, single file between giant burlap bags towering over our heads. That was wonderful — exotic smells of cloves; nutmeg; and cinnamon sticks. But then we were ushered into a board room, and seated at a long wooden table. The walls were wood-paneled — but not like your parents’ basement rec-room; think the uncomfortable, nowhere-to-hide kind of room where Hercule Poirot assembled his suspects at the end of a murder inquiry.
We were each served some tea, in a fancy china cup and saucer. Then someone asked “Milk? Or lemon?”
I was paralyzed. How could I make a decision like that? I made the only possible choice: both. First, I squeezed in the lemon. Then I poured in the milk …and watched in horror as my beverage clumped itself into nasty little curds. Then, of course, everyone laughed at me.
Perhaps I should have learned something about making choices; perhaps I should have learned that sometimes less is more. But what I really learned was: Choose the Coffee! Because no one ever offers you lemon with coffee.
I offered to demonstrate for Mr. Tea, with a slice of lemon. He backed out the door and around the corner. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll be back.
